Cultural Heritage
by Shibara
Summary: In which Metroplex finds out about Machu Picchu


Prompt: Ideas roaming my head + "Scandalous!", given at the Metroplex Party in tf-g1-season3 community.

Warnings: None

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Sometimes, Metroplex found certain human concepts simply too alien to process.

'Taking time off' was understandable, however.

Metroplex had found out about holidays soon after his arrival to Earth. It was hard to stay ignorant; many humans almost lived their working days as mere in-between moments before the next resting period, be it Sundays or half the summer.

He understood why humans did it, but it was something he could not relate to.

He didn't perceive recreational activities as something he had to dedicate his exclusive attention to. There were always parts of him engaged in tasks that could be labeled as "work". For him, the nearest thing to closing down the shop and pulling the "Out on holiday!" sign was stasys. It didn't rank anywhere on his Pleasurable Activities list.

Tourism was understandable, too.

Humans frequently travelled away from their homes when they had free time, just for the sake of being there. Even if it was not something Metroplex did, he comprehended why humans liked touring. It was an enjoyable thing. Cybertronians did it, too, and the cityformer saw it as leisure time combined with a desire to explore.

All those things were fine, but then Carly had mentioned she'd always wanted to visit a place called Machu Picchu. Metroplex had figured it was a place of interest for one reason or another.

Later on, he looked it up to see why it was so interesting, and became completely horrified.

Machu Picchu was a corpse. Carly wanted to see the corpse of a city.

Metroplex was a living being in his own right. He had a spark. His alone. He had a mind and a personality.

But he also was a city.

He pulsed with the multiple life-forms inside of him, and that was something like a second spark, one that throbbed with the activity of hundreds of fuel-pumps at the same time. He felt that, even though he could live while being completely empty of other mecha, part of him would die if those tiny creatures went away.

Before the war, Cybertron had been ever growing, architectonically speaking. It had been a constant movement. The old and fragile had been torn down to make space for the new and strong.

When the war reached a certain point, reconstruction had ceased to be an option. The war had drained all resources, leading to a complete halt in the perpetual rebuilding of the metal cities. …Even so, the plan had always been that one day, when everything was over and done with, reconstruction would begin once more.

That had always been Metroplex's hope: reconstruction.

Someday, the cities of his homeworld would begin anew their slow process towards healing. They would rise from the rubble and once more vibrate with that special giant life-force…, the kind composed of thousands of smaller ones.

But that could never happen at Machu Picchu.

The human city had been laid waste to and abandoned. Not that it was that big a difference from Iacon's fate, but after the war that brought the Peruvian city down had finished, there had been no attempt to recover it. In fact, it had been kept dead on purpose.

Metroplex had read, his spark-case constricting in disgust, that all humans had been banned from inhabiting it, because the old structures could be damaged otherwise.

It was preposterous! It reminded him of something he had seen in a human movie once: the image of a little boy picking at a dead frog with a stick.

At first the cityformer tried to rationalize it. He thought humans went there to mourn the dead, like a giant graveyard. He figured it would be a solemn act of some kind, an embracing of what had been lost. Perhaps even a reminder, so that it never happened again. If that was so, the ruins served a purpose. That would mean it was for something.

But eventually, he realized it simply wasn't like that: people just went there because it was interesting. A curiosity, nothing more.

Some visitors wondered about the people who had once lived there… Some looked in awe at the cultural remnants. In truth, it all boiled down to, "Let's go to see what's left of that place. I heard it was something big once." It was an entire city, dead, but filled with small signs pointing out curious information regarding a particular stone, or bustling with guides herding tourists around, delivering data on this or that empty building.

Morbidly curious, Metroplex browsed through the files his human friends had provided and discovered, terrified and fascinated, that this happened everywhere on Earth. Crumbling Celtic castles covered in moss. Pyramids and old temples gently dissolving into dust. Settlements of all kinds, once teeming with life, now stood cut open with their entrails on display.

In the name of cultural heritage, humanity had frozen those places in time, like so many butterflies pinned to a corkboard.

Why did the fleshlings have a need to preserve their history through remains? Weren't records enough to remember what something had once been?

Humanity at large seemed to... like seeing those dead spaces.

Metroplex couldn't understand.

He hoped fervently that when his spark went to the Well, his carcass wouldn't be left on Earth for people to pick at it with a stick.

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Beta'd by Bibliotecaria_D, who had to fight my colon/semi-colon issues and impossible verb times.

Thanks once more ^^


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